Pundits can't figure out why moderate Democrats in the Central Valley and the Inland Empire aren't jumping for joy at the chance to extend and strengthen Assembly Bill 32 - better known as the greenhouse-gas emissions law - beyond 2020.

Facts don't matter. Police are guilty until proven innocent - or even if proven innocent. The Black Lives Matter crusade, born after Florida vigilante George Zimmerman shot unarmed teen Trayvon Martin in 2012, turned to police shootings of black men after the death of Michael Brown, 18, in 2014. It doesn't matter that the U.S. Department of Justice essentially cleared Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson, who said he shot Brown in self-defense. Facts cannot dent the popular narrative of white cops shooting black men because police are racists.

There is an epidemic going on in the United States that leaves no community unaffected, and unfortunately, the Obama Administration is either unaware of its severity or has chosen to ignore the systemic wounds it has inflicted on our society. The conversation about the need for mental health reform, for a national campaign to end the stigma surrounding mental illness, to promote mental wellbeing as vitally important as physical wellbeing, has been just that – a conversation – for too long.

Down in the valley - Manteca, Modesto, Hanford, Bakersfield, Fresno, Stockton, Turlock, and virtually every other community - is where the proverbial rubber hits the road in terms of immigration whether it is legal or otherwise.